A teenage girl allegedly murdered by Peter Tobin was �gagged to keep her quiet� as she met her death, a court was told yesterday. Mr Tobin, 62, is on trial for the murder of Essex teenager Dinah McNicol, 18, who vanished in August 1991.

A teenage girl allegedly murdered by Peter Tobin was "gagged to keep her quiet" as she met her death, a court was told yesterday.

Mr Tobin, 62, is on trial for the murder of Essex teenager Dinah McNicol, 18, who vanished in August 1991 as she made her way home from a music festival.

The jury at Chelmsford Crown Court heard that Mr Tobin is already serving a life sentence the murder of Vicky Hamilton, 15, from Redding, Falkirk, who went missing six months earlier.

The court heard that the bodies of the two young women were found just yards apart in the back garden of a house in Margate, Kent, in November 2007.

William Clegg, QC, for the prosecution, said that Ms McNicol's body had been bound, wrapped in rubbish sacks and covered with concrete.

He said: "The wrists had been tied together with the arms behind her back. The ankles were also tied together. A knotted gag was found in her mouth, presumably to keep her quiet as she was murdered.

"She still had on some jewellery she was wearing, which enabled her to be identified. The height of the body corresponded exactly to her known height and DNA analysis provided confirmation that it was her body."

Mr Clegg told the court that it was the remains of Vicky that were initially found.

He added: "It was the body of another young girl who had gone missing in February 1991, called Vicky Hamilton. The defendant has already been convicted of her murder and is currently serving a life sentence."

The jury was shown a diagram of Ms McNicol's body with her ankles tied to her thighs by the material from her leggings and her ankles tied together with a headscarf.

It was the same headscarf she was photographed wearing during a family trip to see her grandmother in Skegness shortly before she vanished, the prosecution claimed.

Mr Clegg added: "Because of the passage of time it is not possible to positively assert the cause of death but the post-mortem examination findings were consistent with ligature strangulation and gagging. It appears likely she was already dead when she was buried."

Ms McNicol was last seen on August 4 1991 hitchhiking home from a music festival in Liphook in Hampshire, where she celebrated the end of her A Level exams.

The court heard that at that time, when Mr Tobin was 45, he regularly collected his son Daniel from his former wife's home in Portsmouth.

Mr Clegg said it was likely he would have passed the A3, where Dinah and a friend were picked up, and junction eight of the M25 where her friend was dropped off.

The jury was told Ms McNicol had been awarded £2700 compensation following her mother's death in a car crash and she had put it into an Abbey National account for "her future education". Mr Clegg said she had only taken out £220 but just four weeks after she vanished the account had been "virtually cleaned out".

Mr Clegg said: "This was not the actions of his daughter, who was frugal with money. Someone was using her bank account."

High Court Judge David Calvert-Smith, who is presiding over the trial, earlier warned the jury it could take more than three weeks to hear all of the evidence.

Before selecting the jury he asked the panel if they had attended Chelmsford High School for Girls between 1985 and 1991, if they had lived in Scotland between 2004 and 2008 and if they had watched a programme called Peter Tobin Guilty as Charged, aired on the Discovery Channel on March 8.

Mr Tobin denies the charges against him. The trial continues.